Film Review: Suicide Squad by Blade Brown

Plot: A secret government agency recruits a group of imprisoned supervillains to execute dangerous black ops missions in exchange for clemency, which inevitably leads to chaos.

Review:
Let’s get straight to it. Suicide Squad is getting trashed by critics. Left and right, nonstop, the movie is getting negative reviews. And for the life of me, I cannot understand why. This is no perfect movie by any means, but it is damn sure a entertaining one.

After the (spoiler alert) death of Superman, Amanda Waller fears what else may be out there. Superman was a friend to humanity. But after Zod and Doomsday, she fears what may be approaching next. So she creates a group of gifted bad guys to fight fire with fire. And if the bad guys die, who cares? They are bad guys after all. And just like that, the suicide squad is born.

The cast in this movie is exceptional. While some get a lot more screen time than others, you can see the chemistry with the cast as they’re all on screen. While supporting players like Boomerang (a surprisingly good Jai Courtney) have their small moments to shine, the main players are clearly Will Smith’s Deadshot and Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn. Smith and Robbie have worked together before on the Focus, so their chemistry walking into this movie was already great. Their characters instantly click on screen and I would love to see the relationship between them expand in the sequel. Another standout performance is the cold hearted Amanda Waller, played by Academy Award nominee Viola Davis. Soon as she was cast as Waller, everyone knew she would knock it out of the park as her reputation precedes her. As good as she is, one can’t help but wonder how the rumored potential casting of Oprah Winfrey in the role could’ve played out. That would’ve been a sight to see.

Joel Kinnaman of The Killing and the Robocop remake stars as Rick Flag, the leader of the Suicide Squad, referred to as Task Force X in the film. Kinnaman is solid and his scenes with Smith’s Deadshot are great as the two trade bravado back and forth until eventually coming to a mutual respect. While Smith is clearly the bigger actor, the originally cast Tom Hardy (who had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts with that terrible The Revenant movie) would’ve been very interesting. With Smith & Hardy both being alpha males and Hardy being a stronger actor than Kinnaman, that face off could’ve been legendary. Jay Hernandez gives probably the most complex and heart driven performance in the movie as El Diablo. Pretty much thrown into the situation, he’s an unwilling participant in the squad due to a tragedy involving his family. As good as the cast is, there’s really one performance that matters to people in the film, and that’s Jared Leto’s incarnation of The Joker. The question is, how did he do? In my opinion, pretty good. Where does he rank among Joker performances? That’s unfair to judge.

For starters, the scenes with Joker and Harley Quinn are all great. I have no idea why more scenes weren’t in the movie as both actors were almost flawless on screen together. The big issue with the Joker, and what makes it hard to rank him is his limited screen time. For him to be apart of the marketing the way he is, he should’ve been in the movie a hell of a lot more. He’s no Heath Ledger, and it’s unfair to compare the two as Heath’s version of The Joker was the center of attention in his movie. But with the right material, I believe Leto can knock it out the park as he clearly dove head first into the character. But that’s the good. Now, here’s the bad and the ugly.

Two characters who aren’t that fun are Killer Croc and Katana. While Croc has a few one liners and does look pretty good considering the use of practical effects, I thought they clearly tried to urbanize him. Katana unfortunately is in the movie for no apparent reason. She literally speaks 3 times and isn’t as cool as the trailers would lead you to believe. But the ugly, and the undeniable biggest flaw in the movie is the miscasting of Cara Delevingne as June Moon/Enchantress. As June, she is watchable. But once she’s the Enchantress is just awful. Especially in the third act when she becomes fully possessed and has a horrible dubbed voice and does a weird slow wind with her every movement. It seemed like DJ Cara Delevingne was about to start playing EDM hits instead of destroying the world. And the third act of the movie is just horrid. As a matter of fact, after the bar scene, just go on a 15 minute smoke break. Because the finale is literally one of the worst I’ve seen in a super hero movie. Only the fantastic four movies (all of them) immediately come to mind when it comes to a worse ending. Even still, for me, the good in this movie far outweighs the bad.

THE BOTTOM LINE
While nowhere near a perfect film, Suicide Squad is still a fun time at the movies. With a solid cast and a gifted director, the future looks very promising for the worst heroes ever. Whenever they have their next mission, I’ll be ready to see the sparks fly.